Since the late World War and nuclear weapons were developed by humans, they have attracted much attention. Not only because of the huge power of nuclear weapons themselves, but also because of the huge harm caused by nuclear radiation to human beings. There was a serious nuclear radiation leakage from a nuclear power plant in history. The leak occurred at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in the Soviet Union's Ukraine. This incident attracted international attention. If we talk about modern nuclear powers, in addition to the United States and the Soviet Union, there is another country that has experienced nuclear leaks: Ukraine .
Ukraine was allied with the Soviet Union before independence and was part of Soviet territory. After more than 40 years of Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union, the Soviet Union disintegrated in 1991 into 15 countries, one of which was Ukraine. After Ukraine became independent, it actually had more than 3,000 bombs in one night, becoming the world's third nuclear power in one fell swoop. Its strength was very well hidden. Of course, this also triggered a rare joint response from the United States and Russia. how did this happen?
During the Cold War, the Soviet Union was able to openly engage in arms and technological competitions with the United States, which shows that the Soviet Union's military strength is also very strong and can compete with the United States. At that time, Ukraine still belonged to the territory of the Soviet Union, and its geographical location was very important, so Ukraine also received "favor" from the Soviet Union. In order to fight against the United States, the Soviet Union also spent a lot of money on Ukraine, placing part of its army and sophisticated weapons and equipment on Ukrainian territory.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ukraine gained independence and naturally inherited a large amount of military-industrial heritage. Among them are more than 2,000 strategic nuclear weapons, more than 1,000 intercontinental missile nuclear warheads , and 19 Tu-160 bombers . It can be said that both the army and the number of nuclear weapons are quite large, not to mention the terrifyingly powerful nuclear bombs. So at that time, Russia and the United States had the same goal, and they wanted to weaken Ukraine's military strength. Neither country can tolerate the strength of others threatening its own status.
Russia and the United States used economic means, temptation or deterrence to make Ukraine sell or destroy some well-equipped weapons. At that time, Ukraine's economic development was not optimistic, and even if it inherited many weapons and equipment, it could not afford the maintenance costs. . After receiving financial assistance from Russia and the United States, Ukraine destroyed all nuclear missile launchers and nuclear weapons, and even gave some Tu-160 bombers to the Russian army, and some fighters were even directly smashed. In this way, Ukraine changed from a nuclear power to a non-nuclear country overnight.
Decades later, Ukraine discovered that the blueprint drawn by the United States had not been realized, the promised help had not been forthcoming, and economic development had not picked up. There are great conflicts with Russia on border disputes. The two countries are brothers of the same race, but they are like enemies. Slowly, Ukraine finally realized that it had been deceived by the United States and Russia and should not have destroyed its nuclear weapons.
In the past few months, the conflict between Russia and Ukraine has broken out, and Ukraine has been in a state of being beaten. If these thousands of nuclear bombs had not been destroyed at that time, but had gritted their teeth and persisted until today, it is estimated that the Russia-Ukraine conflict would not have broken out, and Ukraine would not have become a pawn of the United States and Western countries and used as artillery fire. It can be seen that at any time, only one's own strength is the most reliable.
